We compare the available wind resources for conventional wind turbines and for airborne wind energy systems. Accessing higher altitudes and continuously adjusting the harvesting operation to the wind resource substantially increases the potential energy yield. The study is based on the ERA5 reanalysis data which covers a period of 7 years...

Full decarbonisation of the electricity system is one of the key elements to limit global warming. As this transition takes place, the electricity system must maintain system adequacy and remain affordable to consumers. In liberalised electricity markets investors are seen as key actors driving this transition. Due to the intermittent...

To reduce the cycle time of structural, automotive thermoplastic composites, we investigated the potential of direct thermoplastic melt impregnation of glass fabrics using an injection moulding process. At the high pressures that occur during the process, the effect of the fabric architecture on the impregnation, compaction, volume fraction...

System safety and reliability assessment relies on historical data and experts opinion for estimating the required failure probabilities. When data comes from different sources, be it different databases or subject domain experts, the estimation of accurate probabilities would be very challenging, if not impossible, and subject to high epistemic...

Natural fibre (NF) reinforced composites offer high specific mechanical properties and are an ecological alternative to synthetic fibre-reinforced composites. While having great potential, their use today is limited to non-structural applications, mostly with epoxy or polypropylene matrices. This work studies suitable high-performance...

A young boy with type 1 Diabetes Mellitus is supported by a social robot on the road to self-management. The robot has knowledge on the goals that the boy needs to reach, as discussed with his health care professional. The robot also knows the boy’s activity options and preferences. It suggests activities based on this knowledge, but also...

Stochastic systems have been widely investigated and employed in numerousapplications in different areas such as finance, biology and engineering asthey allow accounting for imprecisions so often faced in every practical tasks. Often that task would require to find the best action sequence in order to optimize the outcome. When the...

Agent-oriented programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm introduced roughly thirty years ago as an approach to problems in Artificial Intelligence (AI). An agent is a piece of software that can perceive its environment (e.g., through sensors) and act upon that environment (e.g., through actuators). A cognitive agent is a specific type of agent...

Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing trend in the development of wearable robotics for rehabilitation and human augmentation. Although most such devices have been envisioned and realized to extend human capabilities, they do not primarily target balance control. For a wide range of physiotherapy recipients, impaired balance,...

This paper examines a problem related to dispatching materials to spreaders in coal (lignite) mines operated under the paradigm of continuously excavated material flow. In the considered particular case, complexity arises from different material types of overburden to be placed on the dump site in pre-defined patterns that guarantee...

A multiscale fracture model is developed to study the influence of defects appearing at a microscale in a fiber-reinforced composite laminate. The model establishes a link between the geometrical characteristics of sub-ply imperfections that may be created during manufacturing and the overall fracture strength and fracture energy of the...

This thesis explores the possibility of controlling the quantum states of high frequency mechanical resonators using infra-red laser pulses. Chapter 1 gives an overview of quantum technologies based on mechanical resonators relevant for this thesis. Chapter 2 provides the basics of the theoretical background of optomechanics. The Hamiltonian...

Data gaps as educational opportunities - mobilizing young researchers, citizen scientists, and mobile technology in data and resource scarce areas. This dissertation chronicles these themes through the lessons learned along the fledgling journey of SmartPhones4Water (S4W) and S4W-Nepal, from inception through the first few years of...

Among a wide variety of topics that are covered by Dynamic Security Assessment (DSA), maintaining synchronous operation and acceptable voltage profiles stand out. These two stability categories are mostly jeopardized in the seconds after a large contingency occurs. Therefore, this thesis tackles the two aspects of large disturbance stability of...

Quantum computers can solve some problems exponentially faster than classical computers. Unfortunately, the computational power of quantum computers is currently limited by the number of working qubits. It is difficult to scale up these systems, because qubits are easily affected by noise in their environment. This noise leads to decoherence:...

Quantum computers promise to be a revolutionary new technology. However, in order to realise this promise many hurdles must first be overcome. In this thesis we investigate two such hurdles: the presence of noise in quantum computers and limitations on the connectivity and control in large scale quantum computing architectures.In order to combat...

Quantum error correction (QEC) is key to have reliable quantum computation and storage, due to the fragility of qubits in current quantum technology and the imperfect application of quantum operations. In order to have efficient quantum computation and storage, active QEC is required. QEC consists of an encoding and a decoding process. The way...

The rapid urban growth of Brazilian cities in the second half of the twentieth century produced an extremely unequal urban fabric with spatial discontinuities and left-over spaces. Spatial fragmentation in Brazilian metropolises is not only related to spatial discontinuities, but also to socioeconomic inequalities. Walls in Brazil are physical...

Following their conception in the mid twentieth century, the world of computers has evolved from a landscape of isolated entities into a sprawling web of interconnected machines. Yet, given this evolution, many of the methods we use for allowing computers to work together still reflect their inherently isolated origins with the aggregation of...

Environmental analysis should be performed early in the Research and Development (R&D) phases of new technologies to timely determine potential impact and, thereby, include prevention and minimization of unfavorable ecological impact into the innovation process. Here, we demonstrate the application of anticipatory Life Cycle Assessment ...